Mark 10:46-53

“Take Heart, Get Up, He’s Calling You”

October 25, 2009

Pentecost 21

Prayer: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Give us the sight of faith and with your words of invitation and healing, turn our lives toward following you. Amen.

If you had to give up one of your five senses, which one would you be most willing to give up?

This was a question asked in a Bible Study with high schoolers a couple of weeks ago. As the youth wrestled aloud with one another about the challenges of the loss of each sense, one thing was clear. No one was willing to give up their sight. The thought never crossed the minds or the lips of anyone around the table. “It would just be too hard”, they said and “we’d have to depend on others to help us get around,” another one said.

For the vast majority of people who are sighted, it is difficult to imagine life without sight. I have a hard enough time dealing with the fact that my eye doctor tells me that I could use bifocals. Yet, even for those of us who have our sight (even if we are aided by corrective lenses), it is probably safe to say that we’ve all had blind spots in our lives before. Perhaps you are blind to something that you’ve done or not done that has caused a friend has stopped talking to you or you are blind to news that everyone else seems to know about but that you haven’t picked up on or perhaps there is change happening in your life right now and you are blind to how it will impact you in the future.

In Jesus’ last leg of his journey into Jerusalem, he is confronted one more time with an outcast, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus. He was seeking salvation from his blindness and mercy and restoration of his life. In Jesus’ day, someone who lost their sight was thought to have sinned against God and therefore it was punishment for what the person had done; whether they knew of their sin or not. The result was a life not only in literal darkness, but it was a life of isolated darkness away from family and friends because of the sin that he was perceived to have carried. He was unclean, outside of the law and undesired by anyone in his community. Bartimaeus was as concerned, if not more about being a part of society again as he was in regaining his sight.

Though Bartimaeus was blind to many things, he clearly saw who Jesus was. Perhaps more than anyone else in the crowd, he was sure that Jesus had the will to make him whole again, and that Jesus had the ability to restore him to the community that he loved, but that had not loved him for so many years.

Bartimaeus was right too. With three short words from Jesus, “Call him here.” The transformation from blindness to sight, from darkness to light, and from isolation to community was starting to take shape. And not only was Bartimaeus going to be transformed by Jesus word, but the whole crowd would be too.

The same people who had been trying to silence Bartimaeus, and take his voice from him as well, were now the one’s who were extending an invitation to him. “Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”

I was a Bible camp counselor for two summers outside of Alexandria, MN. I saw kids come to camp that were sometimes blind to the love of God in their lives; they felt isolated and appeared angry or withdrawn. Sometimes kids came like Bartimaeus, yearning for God’s attention. You could see their hunger for love and attention in their faces and hear it in their voices. One of the boys that came to camp was an 8^th grader named Danny.

I could tell it was going to be a rough start and perhaps a very trying week when Danny came to camp. I had already had to take away firecrackers and a knife from one kid, and the week had literally just begun. As I stood near the registration shack waiting for my cabin group to form, four boys came over toward me, apparently all from the same church and all equally perturbed that they had to be there.

I soon found out that all seven of the guys in my cabin were here for a mandatory week of confirmation camp. Danny was one of the four who had come from one church and he was the leader of the disgruntled campers. Literally, the first words he said to me were, “This week is going to be the worst! I can’t believe the pastor makes us come to stupid places like this.”

Soon we gathered on the lawn outside the chapel to talk about the week and some basic ground rules for how we would live together for the next 5 days. As I talked, I could tell no one was listening. It would have been as effective for me to go talk to the squirrels that were chasing each other across the lawn. Finally, one of the boys chimed in, “I really don’t care what we do this week it’s going to be dumb anyway.” And then another boy complained and finally Danny chimed in again. “I don’t care about any of this; none of it’s going to be fun.”

I realized now that Danny was starving for attention and the only way he could get any was to go with the flow of the rest of the boys. I responded to their complaints by saying, “I didn’t care if they had a good time, but that I fully intended to have fun this week and that they were welcome to join me in having fun too. The best way I know how to do that is to get involved in everything this week and make the most of it all.”

Slowly but surely, the mood and the attitude started to change as the week progressed. Danny started to see that Bible camp wasn’t so bad and God was more interesting than he thought. Danny was taking heart in this new experience. By Tuesday afternoon we were all having a little more fun and our Bible studies started to really speak to the group. Danny was now volunteering to read passages of Scripture and be the first one to do some of the activities. Jesus was at work again giving faith to the blind and reconnecting those who were feeling lost and isolated with a community that gives life.

When Friday morning came around and it was time to say goodbye, Danny’s mom arrived to pick him up. She could tell that he had been changed by his encounter with Jesus at camp. She told me that Danny had never easily made friends and that she couldn’t believe all the people he was saying goodbye to. Then Danny came over, gave me a big hug and said, “This was the best week of my life. I can’t wait to go home and tell my friends about Bible camp.” In the course of a week, Danny had new eyes to see with and heard Jesus voice echoing in his life.

“Take heart, get up, he’s calling you.” It’s your invitation to wonder and wander in the love of God. It is an invitation to be part of a community that is filled with life, even when you are experiencing blind spots. Blind spots of every kind inevitably come. Faith fades to doubt, hope to fear, excitement to exhaustion, yet Jesus does not give up. He reaches out and changes our perspective, gives us new lenses to see him beside us joining us to each other as his body called to follow him because he has given us eyes of faith to see the wonderful works of God in the middle of the uncertainties and challenges in life. Amen.

Power at Play

Mark 10:35-45

Pentecost 20

Sermon for Sunday, October 18, 2009

Prayer: God of power and love, call us to self-giving over selfishness, service over being served, and call us to follow you over following our own ways. Transform us by your word today, through the Word who became human, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I had a history professor in college who reminded his classes that history is most often remembered from the side of power. He’d say that one of the benefits of winning wars is that the victors get to write the history. We only need to look to our own history as Americans to recognize the truth in this statement.

We celebrate the independence that we won from the British over 230 years ago with volumes and volumes of history books and tales from the battle field. You can walk the steps of the revolution in the Boston Area by following a painted red stripe that runs through the city. Yet, when I searched for how the British remember that war, most people say they don’t. It is not taught in schools and or written in books. We humans simply don’t like to remember our defeats.

The same holds true when we look at pop culture and recent history. We celebrate and remember the rich, powerful, and the beautiful, as our society holds these characteristics as winning attributes. Forbes Magazine recognizes the 400 richest people in America, but there’s no cover story out there telling the stories of the 400 poorest people in America; or the 300 million others of us either. Just think how #401 feels. The trouble is that this type of power is limiting. It limits how many people can have it, it limits the reason for people to be recognized to one factor that they may or may not have had a whole lot to do with (just look at the four Walton siblings, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune). And when you boil it all down, it limits the type of relationships one forms and the type of community one can exist in because one loses themselves in the façade of power and riches.

Now, I realize this list is an extreme example and probably not one of us in this room realistically strives to find themselves on the Forbes 400 list, but we cannot deny that tally keeping like this impacts the way we see each other and view others.

Like James and John, we yearn for glory and power in some shape or another. Like James and John, in seeking this power, we probably don’t know what we are asking for. And like all the disciples, we may also grumble when someone else comes up with a good idea to get ahead of the rest before we do.

Jesus challenges our assumptions. He refocuses our attention on what lasting and true power looks like. Jesus reminds us this tally keeping, one-upsmanship-til-we-are-blue-in-the-face, hierarchical community shall not be so among us. It doesn’t last. The power and glory of this world are so often fleeting, as someone else with more money, more education, new knowledge and skills takes what we once thought was ours for good. To Jesus, this kind of power only serves to show us what power is not.

As followers of Christ, we are not bound by these oppressive rules and this fleeting glory because the one we follow is different. Jesus’ power is found in giving himself up to the world’s power, laying his life down and being raised up so that we may be rescued from thinking that we have the power to save ourselves. Jesus also reminds us that this self-gving way of life shall be so among us who follow him. Though the rest of society may or may not grant us great power and authority in our Monday-Saturday lives, when we gather together as God’s people, we hear the one calling that matters most, it is the calling to serve as Jesus serves. This is the calling that shapes our lives as Christians.

In this calling, we all have power. In this there are not limits on who can have it, no limits on what gifts are valued or who can take part in it. Jesus has gone ahead us through suffering, death, and resurrection. And when we follow his path, the same is ensured for us.

By heeding Jesus call to give yourself to others in service, you have been freed from the grip of the constant question of whether you’re good enough, or smart enough or doggonit “Do people like you?” The money, the talents, the knowledge and prestige that you have no longer hold power over you as a Gentile ruler. Rather they are gifts and resources for you to employ in your service to the world.

I know of a dinner group who meets about once a month. They’ve been friends since college. All of them pursued different career paths and as a result, some made more money than others. On one occasion, sometime during the No Child Left Behind debate, everyone had gathered and was sitting around the table discussing politics and life.

One of the guys, named John, who had become a very successful and wealthy person, decided to explain the problem with education.

He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" To strengthen his point, he cited the old cliché about teachers: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." To stress his point further he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Carol. Be honest. What do you make?"

Carol, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness
replied, "You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)

"Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought
they could. I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor winner. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental. You want to know what I make?" (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.)
I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions. I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding isn't everything. I make them read, read, read. I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know about English while preserving their unique cultural identity. I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe. Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can find true success."

Carol paused one last time and then continued.

"Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn't everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.... You want to know what I make?

I make a difference! What do you make?"

John’s jaw dropped. He went silent.

As I look around this room this morning, I know how many of you give of yourself to others everyday of your lives, making a difference. It is where true power is found. God calls all of us to this way of life. By the power God at work in us we can turn the power that the world values into a power that gives life to others. Amen